Client will hire me for $50/hr. My hourly rate of $15. I have to pay back $35

[#1]

One of middle man offering :
His client will hire me for $50/hr. My hourly rate of $15. I have to pay back $35 once fund available via Payoneer.

Is this upwork policy violations ?

[#2]

---

Shagar S wrote:

One of middle man offering :
His client will hire me for $50/hr. My hourly rate of $15. I have to pay back $35 once fund available via Payoneer.

Is this upwork policy violations ?

---

Why would someone do that, instead of just paying you $15? It sounds like scam to me.

Also, you realise that you would have to pay Upwork's 20% fee on $50 instead of $15, so the Upwork fee would be $10 instead of $3, which means you would only earn $5 for an hour's work. Not sure why you would agree to something like that.

[#3 · Accepted solution]

Shagar, this person is simply going to steal your money.

And you can have your Upwork account terminated for participating in this. It is a serious ToS violation to exchange funds off-platform.*

(* If I understand correctly, when you said: "I have to pay back $35 once funds are available via Payoneer"... you meant that once the Upwork funds have become available from your $50/hour job, you will pay the money to the "client" using Payoneer. This means you would be exchanging funds off-platform. If the "client" is able to dispute your time or do a credit card chargeback, or if the "client" is using a stolen credit card number, then all of these things would mean that the client isn't paying anything - and you aren't earning anything, but you are sending real money to him from your Payonner account. OR it is straight-up money laundering, as Petra suggests. Either way, it's something you don't want to be involved with.)

[#4]

Declined the offer 🙂 Thank you guys.

[#5]

---

Shagar S wrote:

Declined the offer 🙂 Thank you guys.

---

You may want to change your hourly rate back to what it is supposed to be as well...

[#6]

Hi Shagar,

Thanks for reporting this to us. I'll be sure to escalate this to the correct team for their review and appropriate action will be taken according to our internal processes. 

Please check this help article for more information on how to use the flag option found on each job post or message to report any suspicious or inappropriate content. Also, check out this post for more tips on how to avoid questionable jobs.

[#7]

Thanks Preston. I just declined the offer. I think that Indian guy trying to make me fool. But real upwork freelancers are not fool at all ... ha ha ha 🙂

[#8]

Shagar:
You did absolutely no work for that person.

You lost no money at all.

You helped identify a scoundrel, so that Upwork can look into the matter.

You did the right thing by asking about the situation in the Forum.

You were wise and you certainly won this round.

[#9]

Thank you sir.

[#10]

---

Shagar S wrote:

His client will hire me for $50/hr. My hourly rate of $15. I have to pay back $35 once fund available via Payoneer.

Is this upwork policy violations ?

---

It is.

It's also utterly idiotic.

And money laundering.